I finally gave up on Windows after my PC went into a blue screen loop following a Windows update. OK, I’d paid for the 3 year extended warranty (I usually avoid these, but thought I might need one). There are a couple of laws which kick into action here (Murphy’s is one of them).� The manufacturer / retailer went bust 3 months after I bought it.

I’d bought an iPod just after Christmas, and was very impressed with the technology.

So I bought a Mac mini. It’s tiny. It’s quiet. It doesn’t need lots of patches just to stop it from being compromised. And it doesn’t seem to need a processor dedicated to grinding through all the disks in case something nasty did get through.

I’d been through a process of migrating my software to Open Source over the last few years (with OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, JAlbum et al). The only reason for me to run Windows now is Suunto’s Dive Manager, and I think JDiveLog’s going to give the answer to that one. I’m missing Notepad++ and php / MySql at the moment, and I’ve still gor to migrate my mailbox, but I’m sure those’ll have worked out before too long.

LightRoom loaded up fine (which it should, of course), and (allowing for the differences system UI) seems quite seamless.

The main issue was that none of my old USB drives were writeable. I’ve installed MacFuse and NTFS-3G, and they look alright, but I’ve not quite taken the plunge yet.

The other issue is that headset microphones don’t seem to work with t the audio in. Apparently, this is at line level, so I need a preamp (or a USB or Firewire interface gadget).

Still, it’s lovely to have backup software just kinda .. well .. there.

And I’m starting to get to grips with iMovie (which is installed) for a project I’m working on (more on that later, probably). A very new experience for me.

So … sorry if I’ve been a bit uncommunicative in this transition. Once I get everything sorted out, Ishould have less personal downtime in future…

Now, when’s the Apple Netbook going to appear ?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Assorted rants, Website News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.